Prior to conducting any electrical repair or modification to existing transformers and associated secondary electrical cabling, electrical linemen must first identify the relevant cabling upon which to work. In particular, a linemen must generally determine which particular cables, amongst a plurality of secondary cables in a transformer, lead to the meter base of a particular building structure, or which particular cables, amongst a plurality of secondary cables uncovered or unearthed in a dug pit, lead to the meter base of a building structure, or which desired cable to splice.
To accomplish such cable identification, the linemen are typically forced to systematically detach secondary cables from the transformer to determine which building structure the secondary cables run to, and thus supply power to, wherein such a determination is made upon the detection of a cessation of electrical current to a particular building structure. Such a method bears obvious ramifications, as several building dwellers will experience a brief period of power outage until the desired cables and associated building structure are identified, thus causing potentially detrimental cessations in business operations, loss of unsaved computer documentation, and generally untimely inconvenience.
Additionally, although terminal ends of primary cables leading from one transformer to another transformer are identifiable, it often becomes difficult to identify phases of primary cables unearthed or exposed in a dug pit, wherein such identification is determined for purposes of splicing in an additional transformer to service new secondary users, and wherein each appropriate or desired phases of primary cables must be identified for splicing.
Although equipment is available for identification of primary and secondary cables, such equipment is very large, heavy and bulky, overly complex to implement, and extremely expensive, and, as such, are rarely utilized by linemen, or issued as standard equipment to linemen by their electrical servicing company. Additionally, the overall bulky or cumbersome nature of such equipment makes the deployment or implementation of same burdensomely difficult, especially when attempting to work the equipment in between a plurality of generally closely positioned secondary cables. Moreover, carrying such weighty equipment into and out of dug pits or ditches is undoubtedly a physically strenuous task.
Therefore, it is readily apparent that there is a need for an apparatus and method for electrical cable identification that is expeditious, inexpensive, lightweight, personally portable and easy to implement, wherein both primary and secondary cables, including grounded secondary cables/conductors, may be identified without the aforementioned disadvantages.